[Linux-aus] Minutes of Council Meeting Tuesday 11th February 2014

[Russell Coker]

On Sat, 15 Feb 2014, Linux Australia Secretary <secretary at linux.org.au> wrote:
>     RECOMMENDATION from RUSSELL COKER regarding MAILING LIST POLICY
>     That the mailing list policy should have a clause that off-list
>     discussion should remain private
>     DEFERRED FOR CONSIDERATION at F2F

I don't recall making any recommendation of that nature.  The convention is 
that private mail remains private by default.  So if it's desired that private 
mail remain private then nothing needs to be done.

The only recommendation that I made in regard to private mail was to deal with 
the problem of abusive private mail that has been sent to some participants in 
recent discussions.

I believe that the policy should clearly state that private mail of a 
threatening or harassing nature that is sent in response to list mail should 
NOT be considered to be private.  I also believe that replies to mailing list 
messages should be expected to conform to the same rules as on-list mail and 
that messages which break those rules should be sent to the council.

A common pattern in list discussions (which has been recently demonstrated on 
this list) is that when there's a contentious issue some people will send 
abusive messages off-list in the expectation that the list rules don't apply 
and that the conventions regarding private mail will keep their misbehavior 
secret.

The way things seem to work is that only the more powerful people in the Linux 
community can safely get involved in discussions on this list.

-- 
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